Big T Quilt: Borders and Basting

Over the last few weeks I have been working on my Big T quilt. I designed a double border and discovered that I had enough of the first border fabric (same as the setting blocks), but nothing that would work for the outside border. Off to the quilt shop!

I went looking for something in dark brown, but found something even darker. It looks crazy dark in the picture to the left, but I think in the close up below you can see that it is not straight black and works well with all the browns in the main quilt.

I applied the first borders maybe a week ago when I had a short block of time, and got to the final border today. Once I had those done, I hung the top on the wall and stood back to admire study it, and to celebrate that it was done...yay! That final border is awfully dark, but I then I decided it just makes it look more modern.

Once the top was done, I didn't want to stop there. Success wants more success.

I had been thinking about how to do the back. I found a few pieces that I liked, but none of it was enough to do the whole back. So it would be pieced.

I laid out some of the fabrics on my design wall (on a regular day that would be called my living room floor) and came up with something I think I will like:

It's far too wide in this picture, but it would be easier to cut after the layering. All along, I loved the cityscape fabric on the right and the forest fabric on the left but didn't think they worked very well together. But the longer they sat on my floor design wall, the more I liked the combination. I added some more orangey-brown fabrics on the side and bottom to finish out the size and called it good. (Some were used on the top; some were purchased for this quilt but not actually used on the top.)

I thought I would be done then. I mean sewing on borders and then piecing together a back was quite enough for one day.

But apparently not. I had already purchased a batting and that meant I was ready to layer and pin baste. Which is what I did. (Any doubting Thomases can come put their fingers on my sore and safety-pin dented fingertips!)

But that really is where I stopped. I thought I knew how I was going to quilt it, but now I'm considering a different version. The original idea had all straight lines and right angles. Now I'm considering the same concept but with curved lines. I think the first idea is too │  │     │  │     │  │ (imagine my hands in a karate-chop position, simultaneously slicing the air in front of me three times from top to bottom in parallel); you know, too straight, too lined up, too square. This was a good place to stop and think about it. Plus ND had just won their game in overtime so it was a good time to stop and celebrate.

I did do about an hour's worth of knitting on the Snowflake Sweater this morning. I'm very close to finishing the body and then will have to do the sleeves. I'm sure all the sewing today was in no way avoidance of having to do the work of figuring out how to do the sleeves. I'm making up a new method...I'm sure that will be no problem whatsoever.

See? No reason to think I was avoiding that task at all.